Prepaid debit card fees fall with competition

Competition helps prepaid debit cards

3:18 PM,
Apr. 17, 2013

In this 2009 file photo, a customer swipes a MasterCard debit card through a machine while checking out at a shop in Seattle. Large banks are entering the prepaid debit card market and helping drive down fees.

Written by

Christine Dugas
| USA Today

Large banks are entering the prepaid debit card market and helping drive down fees.

Big national and regional banks are also making fees less complicated by offering low, fixed monthly costs, says Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, which released a survey of prepaid debit cards recently. The survey found that 13 percent of issuers, mainly large banks, charge a single monthly fee of $4.95 to $7, says Bankrate.com.

That's a better deal than most prepaid debit cards, which have nickel-and-dimed consumers with fees for such things as enrollment, ATM withdrawals and ...